What about WCAG 2.1?

WCAG 2.1 is currently in development and is scheduled to be published as a standard in 2018. The primary focus for WCAG 2.1 is accessibility requirements for people with low vision and cognitive and learning disabilities, and mobile accessibility.

WCAG 2.1 is designed to be "backwards compatible" so websites that conform to WCAG 2.1 will also conform to WCAG 2.0 — which means that a website that meets WCAG 2.1 will meet the requirements of policies that reference WCAG 2.0.

The draft currently includes some success criteria that the Working Group has accepted, and many success criteria that are proposals that the group has not yet accepted. We are refining those proposals, and other proposals that are not yet included in the draft.

The draft currently includes the WCAG 2.0 success criteria unchanged, even if they are redundant with proposed new success criteria. In later drafts, we might modify some WCAG 2.0 success criteria to reduce duplication and increase clarity. We would like input on the approach — whether to leave the 2.0 success criteria as is, or modify them.

Please review and comment. Updated WCAG 2.1 Working Drafts will be announced periodically to get feedback on accepted and proposed success criteria. We encourage you to submit comments early, to help us complete WCAG 2.1 as soon as possible. (We expect to finalize WCAG 2.1 wording in 2017, and late comments are unlikely to be addressed in this version due to the tight timeline.)

To learn about WCAG 2.0 specifically, start with the WCAG Overview. It provides an important foundation for understanding the different WCAG 2.0 documents, and points to several resources for using WCAG 2.0.

What are the different WCAG 2.0 documents?

Here's a little more perspective on the different technical documents. When web content and web software developers were using WCAG 1.0, they had many questions on how to implement it, how to evaluate for it, and the reasons behind its requirements. WAI wanted to provide this information with WCAG 2.0, and since those details don't fit well in a technical standard, they are in the supporting documents.

Thus with WCAG 2.0, there are extensive supporting materials, which are advisory documents. The WCAG 2.0 guidelines document itself is the only document that is a web standard, and it is fairly short.

No, you do not have to use the techniques in W3C's Techniques for WCAG 2.0 document.

The techniques are informative; that means they are not required. The basis for determining conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the success criteria from the WCAG 2.0 standard — not the techniques.

While many authors find W3C-documented techniques useful, there may be other ways to meet WCAG success criteria. You can use other techniques. Web content could even fail a particular technique test, yet still meet WCAG in a different way. Also, content that uses some of the Techniques does not necessarily meet all WCAG success criteria.

What would be the negative consequences of allowing only W3C's published techniques to be used for conformance to WCAG 2.0?

Background: Some organizations have considered requiring all web content to use W3C's published techniques.

W3C recommends that the only thing that is required is meeting the WCAG 2.0 success criteria. The basis for determining conformance to WCAG 2.0 is the success criteria from the WCAG 2.0 standard — not the techniques. W3C's Techniques for WCAG 2.0 document is informative (that is, not required, non-normative).

W3C cautions against requiring web content to use only W3C's published sufficient techniques and not allowing other techniques for several reasons, including:

It would prevent the use of new technologies (for example, HTML5 and WAI-ARIA) while the technologies and relevant sufficient techniques are being developed, which is usually more than a year. It often takes several years for technologies to be developed and finalized. Once a technology is stable, it usually takes several months for the WCAG Working Group to develop techniques, test them with user agents and assistive technologies, make them available for public review, revise them as needed, and formally publish them.

W3C's Techniques for WCAG 2.0 is not comprehensive and may not cover newer technologies and situations. There may be techniques that are sufficient to meet a given success criteria, but that are not yet included in W3C's published document.

W3C's published sufficient techniques may not always be the best techniques in a specific circumstance.

It is not always possible to use the W3C's published sufficient techniques — for example, because of the way the content is designed — and there are other ways to meet the success criteria.

It would prevent the use of new techniques and best practices until W3C published them.

Therefore, W3C's published techniques should not be required as the only way to meet WCAG 2.0 success criteria unless the limitations and consequences above are understood and acceptable.

Is ISO/IEC 40500 the same as WCAG 2.0?

Yes. WCAG 2.0 is approved as an ISO standard: ISO/IEC 40500:2012. ISO/IEC 40500 is exactly the same as the original Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).

Benefits of WCAG as ISO

Approval of WCAG 2.0 as an ISO standard benefits countries and organizations that can more easily adopt ISO standards. Countries that previously adapted WCAG 2.0 may now be able to adopt WCAG 2.0 as is by referencing ISO/IEC 40500.

Translations

W3C has offered our WCAG 2.0 Authorized Translations to be used for the ISO/IEC translations. We will update this page when more information about translations is available.

Can I meet WCAG 2.0 with Javascript/Ajax, Flash, PDF, Silverlight, and other technologies?

WCAG 2.0 is designed to apply to a broad range of web technologies.

Techniques for WCAG 2.0 has techniques for several different web technologies. Note that publication of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all cases to create accessible content that meets WCAG 2.0. Developers need to be aware of the limitations of specific technologies and ensure that they create content in a way that is accessible to all their potential users.

How is WCAG 2.0 different from WCAG 1.0?

Generally, WCAG 2.0 applies broadly to more advanced technologies; is easier to use and understand; and is more precisely testable with automated testing and human evaluation. The fundamental issues of web accessibility are the same, though there are some differences in the approach and requirements between WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0.

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 was published in May 1999. WCAG 2.0 was published on 11 December 2008. W3C WAI recommends using WCAG 2.0, instead of WCAG 1.0.

Most websites that conform to WCAG 1.0 should not require significant changes in order to conform to WCAG 2.0, and some will not need any changes at all. For those familiar with WCAG 1.0, it will take a little time to learn the new approach of how the WCAG 2.0 documents provide guidance. To help you move to WCAG 2.0, WAI developed:

Where can I find answers to more of my questions?

WAI hosts an Interest Group (WAI IG) mailing list where the community discusses web accessibility issues. WAI IG provides ideas from different perspectives. If you have a question that might be relevant to the WAI IG list, you can:

WAI staff are actively developing guidelines, technical reports, and supporting material, and generally are not available to answer individual questions. However, you can send questions to wai@w3.org and we will integrate answers into this page and other documents as we are able.

Document Information

Status: Updated 10 March 2017 (first published October 2006)
Editor: Shawn Lawton Henry. Developed with the Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) and Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines
Working
Group
(WCAG WG) joint Task Force.